There is much talk in recent years about building a border wall between the United States and Mexico. From political and social standpoints, there is much disagreement as to whether such a wall should be built. There is agreement, however, that the cost of building the same using conventional building techniques would be prohibitive. It is estimated that the cost would exceed 25 billion dollars and take many years to complete.
As an alternative to building the border wall using conventional means, it has been proposed to build the same from ISO shipping containers. It is estimated that there are thousands of used shipping containers in the world that are currently just sitting idle. If properly designed, a wall could be constructed using these containers for a fraction of the cost of conventional construction.
ISO shipping containers are made of steel and are either 40 feet long or 20 feet long and are generally 8 feet wide and either 8.5 feet or 9.5 feet tall. They are normally six-sided structures and are made from solid steel. Each of the eight corners of conventional shipping containers includes a corner casting that allows the container to be connected to an adjacent container either end to end, top to bottom or side to side. This is accomplished using well known corner connectors such as described, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,722,714; 3,752,511; 6,729,098 and 9,120,618, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The containers can be connected end-to-end horizontally so as to theoretically be any length to provide a protective barrier or wall. By horizontally connecting the necessary number of 40-foot or 20-foot containers together, the resulting barrier row can extend to any desired length. Such a system could be used, therefore, to build a border wall 1,500 miles long or a much shorter wall or fence covering only 100 miles or one mile or just a city block.
There is, therefore, a need for a system for building a wall or fence that is substantially cheaper than conventional construction systems and that can be used to more quickly construct a wall of any length including a border wall between the United States and Mexico if it is going to be done.